The Greek government was forced to admit it has hired over 27,000 employees in the state sector after an investigative report by newspaper Proto Thema. In its effort to do damage control, the government tried to distract from the newspaper’s revelations and leaked a non-paper, a tactic it has repeatedly used in the past, to smear and attack the journalists of Proto Thema and the media in general, using half truths and outright lies. In their desperate attempts to respond to the newspaper’s revelations and deny the reports the government’s propaganda machine was exposed contradicting itself, as in one paragraph it denies hiring the 27,700 employees in the public sector, only to admit that it did take them on, but only as “temporary employes”. The non-paper attempts to distinguish between permanent public sector employees and temporary ones via various EU programs and STAGE projects, only to debunks themselves by passionately defending any employees who appeals to courts for a permanent status in the state sector. According to data by the Greek Statistical Services (ELSTAT), the SYRIZA government hired 27,700 contacted employees, 6,803 permanent employees and 1,750 through court rulings in the past year.